1. How much Moon? How much of the Moons area can be seen from the Earths surface?

A) 39% B) 50% C) 59% D) 74%

When the Moon is full, half (50%) of its area is visible. Since the far side remains permanently hidden, that would seem to be that. However, irregularities called librations in the Moons orbit cause the satellite to wobble slightly. By bringing us slightly different views from one occasion to the next, the librations increase the total viewable area by nearly ten per cent. 3. These boots are made for... In the well-known fairy tale Puss in Boots, a cat is able to help its master from poverty to riches through a series of clever ploys. What special function did the boots have for the cat?
A) They protected its feet while walking out of doors B) While wearing the boots, it could walk and talk like a man C) They allowed it both to travel at great speed, and to become invisible D) They gave it a power of persuasion that no listener could resist

The cat asks its master for a pair of boots at the beginning of the story, giving as its reason only "that I may scamper through the dirt and the brambles". However, there is little in the story to indicate that the boots were really required other than as finery.

1. The shape of the galaxy The galaxy we live in is called the Milky Way. It is shaped approximately like:
A) A round ball B) A doughnut C) A pretzel D) A flat spiral

The Milky Way has four spiral arms radiating out from a central cluster of stars or "nucleus". Our solar system is located on one of the spiral arms, quite far from the center.

1. Know your reindeer

Which of these names does NOT belong to one of Santas reindeer?

A) Comet B) Prancer C) Blitzen D) Klaxon

A klaxon is actually a powerful electric horn. Its name comes from a German word meaning "shriek".

2. Not found in sharks Unlike most other fish, sharks have no:
A) Bones B) Teeth C) Gills D) Liver

A sharks skeleton is made of cartilage, a material somewhat softer and more flexible than bone.

4. The long hot squeeze If you were to take a lump of coal and squeeze for a long time at very high temperatures, you would end up with:
A) Graphite B) Volcanic glass, also known as obsidian C) A smaller lump of coal D) A diamond

This process, occurring in the Earths crust, produces natural diamonds.

8. Droid definition An android is any robot that:

A) Has more than one basic function B) Has the ability to make decisions and formulate plans C) Is built by other robots D) Looks and acts like a human

So far, androids exist only in science fiction; engineers cannot yet build a robot that comes anywhere near human appearance or behavior.

10. Not your average mammals The platypus and the echidna are the only mammals that:
A) Lay eggs B) Have green blood C) Live in Antarctica D) Eat eucalyptus leaves

These animals, called monotremes, are true mammals, but have some reptile-like features.

3. Farewell to change The first coin-operated vending machine dates from at least the first century BC. What product did the machine dispense?
A) Healing crystals B) Holy water C) Honey wine D) Horoscopes

The holy-water vending machine was invented by the Greek mathematician Hero, or at any rate was first described by him. Visitors to temples in Alexandria, Egypt placed a five-drachma coin in the machine and received a measured amount of holy water for ritual cleansing before joining in the rites conducted within. The machine depended on the weight of the coin to

open the valve that allowed the water to flow. Given the relatively simple mechanism, it is quite likely that the first vending machine fraud also occurred at that time. Hero is also credited with devising the first steam engine, although given the widespread availability of slaves it was not put to practical use.

1. Fleet of face Who had the face that launched a thousand ships?
A) Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt B) Helen of Troy C) Joan of Arc D) Queen Elizabeth I of England

Helen was the wife of Menelaus, the brother of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. She eloped with the Trojan prince Paris around 1200 BC. Agamemnon and an alliance of Greek kings sailed to Troy, a walled city in Asia Minor also known as Ilium, and thus began the decade-long siege called the Trojan War. The famous thousand ships line is from Christopher Marlowes play Faustus: Was this the face that launched a thousand ships? And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

2. Well connected Which of the following was Anne Hathaway?

A) The daughter of Sir Walter Raleigh B) The mother of Oliver Cromwell C) The sister of Sir Isaac Newton D) The wife of William Shakespeare

Anne Hathaway was eight years older than Shakespeare, whom she married in 1582 when he was just 18. Although they had three children together, the couple spent most of their married life apart, she remaining at home in Stratford while her husband occupied himself with pursuing a theatrical career in London and becoming the greatest playwright in history.

6. How high is your dudgeon? If you are in high dudgeon, you are:
A) Chained to a cliff B) Convinced of your moral superiority C) Extremely angry D) Full of good cheer

The curious word dudgeon is listed in some dictionaries as being of unknown origin; others derive it from an Anglo-French phrase, en digeon, meaning with ones hand on the hilt of ones dagger. For some reason, dudgeon is virtually always high.

8. The one after the one after Which is the third largest planet in the Solar System?

A) Jupiter B) Neptune C) Saturn D) Uranus

With a diameter 3.98 times that of the Earth, Uranus is slightly larger than Neptune (3.81 Earth diameters), and much smaller than either Jupiter (11.21) or Saturn (9.45). The Earth is the fifth largest planet, followed in order by Venus, Mars, Mercury and Pluto.

9. Knights and ladies In the days of chivalry, when a knight referred to his destrier and a lady to her palfrey, they were both talking about their:
A) Dog B) Hawk C) Horse D) Uncle or aunt

A destrier is a war-horse; a palfrey is a light horse for riding, especially by women.

A map of the "New World" produced in 1507 had the name "America" on it. What was the source of the name?
A) The Carib Indian word for "prosperity" B) The Crown Prince of Spains favorite horse C) Columbuss daughter D) An Italian explorer

Both Spain and Portugal sent expeditions to the "New World", and some of those expeditions included an Italian officer named Amerigo Vespucci. An excellent mapmaker, Vespucci explored and charted the northern coast of South America. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller published Vespuccis map with the name "America" on it, and the name stuck. Presumably he chose the feminine form of Amerigos name for consistency with Asia and Africa.

4. The little ocean that could Which is the worlds smallest ocean?
A) Antarctic B) Arctic C) Atlantic D) Indian

The Arctic Ocean is about 13 million sq. km (5 million sq. mi.) in area. The next smallest is the Indian Ocean at about 72 million sq. km (28 million sq. mi.). There is no Antarctic Ocean.

One way to tell the age of a fish is by looking at its scales. They have growth rings just like trees. These are called circuli. Clusters of them are called annuli. Each annuli show one year.

Facts About the Human Body

Can you feel the pulse in your wrist? For humans the normal pulse is 70 heartbeats per minute. Elephants have a slower pulse of 27 and for a canary it is 1000! If all the blood vessels in your body were laid end to end, they would reach about 60,000 miles.

Abraham Lincoln probably had a medical condition called Marfans syndrome. Some of its symptoms are extremely long bones, curved spine, an arm span that is longer than the persons height, eye problems, heart problems and very little fat. It is a rare, inherited condition. In one day your heart beats 100,000 times. Half your bodys red blood cells are replaced every seven days. By the time you are 70 you will have easily drunk over 12,000 gallons of water. Coughing can cause air to move through your windpipe faster than the speed of sound over a thousand feet per second! Germs only cause disease, right? But a common bacterium, E. Coli, found in the intestine helps us digest green vegetables and beans (also making gases pew!). These same bacteria also make vitamin K, which causes blood to clot. If we didnt have these germs we would bleed to death whenever we got a small cut! It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. That dust on rugs and your furniture is not only dirt. Its mostly made of dead skin cells. Everybody loses millions of skin cells every day which fall on the floor and get kicked up to land on all the surfaces in a room. You could say, Thats me all over. It takes food seven seconds to go from the mouth to the stomach via the esophagus.
Submitted by: Lovella

A humans small intestine is 6 meters long. The human body is 75% water.
Submitted by: veggykid15

Your blood takes a very long trip through your body. If you could stretch out all of a humans blood vessels, they would be about 60,000 miles long. Thats enough to go around the world twice.
Submitted by: Todd

The strongest bone in your body is the femur (thighbone), and its hollow!
Submitted by: aquagirl

The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body.
Submitted by: blue120

The average human dream lasts only 2 to 3 seconds. The average American over fifty will have spent 5 years waiting in lines. The farthest you can see with the naked eye is 2.4 million light years away! (140,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles.) Thats the distance to the gi ant Andromeda Galaxy. You can see it easily as a dim, large gray cloud almost directly overhead in a clear night sky.
Submitted by: Todd

The average person has at least seven dreams a night.

Submitted by: Christina & Jessica

Your brain is move active and thinks more at night than during the day.
Submitted by: Christina & Jessica

Your brain is 80% water. 85% of the population can curl their tongue into a tube. Your tongue has 3,000 taste buds. Your forearm (from inside of elbow to inside of wrist) is the same length as your foot.
Submitted by: Josh

A sneeze travels at over 100 miles per hour. Gesundheit! Your thigh bone is stronger than concrete. Your fingernails grow almost four times as fast as your toenails. You blink your eyes over 10,000,000 a year. There were about 300 bones in your body when you were born, but by the time you reach adulthood you only have 206. The smallest bones in the human body are in your ear!
Submitted by: The Phoenix

Your mouth uses 75 muscles when you speak!

Submitted by: Devin

When you wake up in the morning you are at taller than when you go to sleep, because you have let your spine straighten back out after all the bending, sitting, and moving you have done!
Submitted by: Katie Mae

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Submitted by: Mazda Roxx

The average growth of hair is half an inch per month.

Submitted by: Amylia

If hair remains uncut, it can grow up to 5 feet long.

Submitted by: Amylia

Your tongue, eye, and jaw muscles are among the strongest muscles in your body.

Facts About Language

The language of a society changes slowly but steadily with the result that an educated person will not be able to read or understand words in his language written 500 years ago. Do you feel like you cant talk to your parents? Maybe its because you belong to the Niger-Congo family. More than 1,400 languages are spoken by different members of this family from Africa. It has been estimated that the number of actively spoken languages in the world today is about 6,000.

There is no word that rhymes with orange. Pinocchio is Italian for pine head. The most common letters in English are R S T L N E. There is no word that rhymes with purple. There was only one code during World War II that was never broken by the enemy and was used by the US Army. Navajo soldiers, called Codetalkers, developed a radio code based on their native language. It was the only way US soldiers on the battlefield could be sure that messages were from there own side and not from Japanese imitators. Did you know that the word typewriter is the longest word in the English Language that can be spelled with the the top of the keyboard? You speak about 4,800 words a day. HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPPEDALIOPHOBIA is the fear of long words. The holiday Boxing day was originally celebrated in England,for the servants to the rich people. After chrismas,the servants boxed up all the left-overs from the rich people and bring them home. A palindrome is a word that is spelled the same way from both ends. For example: racecar